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Thread: Will Chinese become a "lingua franca"?

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[quote=CHYNAGYRL,253982]Here's my input on this, because i'm going to major in Second Language Education next year.  I'm very interested in one day managing or developing the curriculum for Mandarin bilingual schools.  There is a pioneering movement towards bilingual Mandarin schools in Canada.  French is our historical second language so nothing will EVER change that.  You cannot rewrite history since France was integral in making Canada.  It is mandatory that every high school student has to study French language in my province.  However, I'm kinda wondering if one day Chinese will become another official language...  now it's the third most spoken language here, 10% of Torontonians are ethnically Chinese.

Now, I did some research and found there are 3 bilingual Mandarin-English schools in Vancouver, perhaps 15 in Edmonton, and several in Calgary.  They have less than 3,000 students now in total, in K-12 levels.  Alberta has the most progressive school system in Canada, so that's why they did this experiment in Edmonton and Calgary.

Many students there are of Chinese heritage, but a number of them are NOT Chinese.  Perhaps Caucasian parents thought it would be cool to have their kids learn Mandarin for their future.  My vision is that in 25 years, the Mandarin schools will have spread and be better than today.  I saw some pictures, and the kids are learning Chinese calligraphy, etc. and it's cool.   In Toronto, there are maybe 5 private Mandarin langauge schools -- for adult learners and kid's camps mainly, but most of the students there are at the lower levels.  Chinese is a very difficult language to master.  I think it will spread but truth is, only young people have leisure time to study such a difficult language and actually speak it well.[/quote]

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